Max Mosley speaks out

Max Mosley was President of the FIA between 1993 and late 2009, but prior to that played a key role in creating the Formula 1 Constructors Association (FOCA) , was President of FISA (’91-’93), was a co-founder of two F1 constructors (March & Simtek) and even had a stint as a racing driver working his way up to F2. This gives him a unique insight into the motorsport landscape and during August Mosley spoke exclusively with Racecar Engineering on a wide range of topics including the future of Formula 1 and the directions it could take in future and could have taken in the past.

Mosley was instrumental in the introduction of hybrid systems into F1 in 2009 (then called KERS) and the introduction of the current turbo compounded hybrid power units in 2014.

“It would have been better to call the systems hybrid from a marketing point of view” he rues. Introducing these new technologies was not all straightforward, initially the hybrid systems proved expensive and unreliable. But even getting to that point was the result of much negotiation with the car manufacturers according to Mosley.(The original 2009 Mercedes F1 hybrid system)
“I had a conversation with Dieter Zetsche and I said ‘energy recovery is it’. You see all the red lights on in a traffic jam, all that energy wasted, it is inconceivable to think that in 50 years time that energy will be wasted and he agreed, but he said I don’t want this in Formula 1 before I have got it in production cars. I said ‘We do’.” Mosley reveals. “Miraculously he had a car in 2009, the first S-Class as a hybrid, so I bought one and brought it into England. Thinking of those things and being fascinated by them is completely different to the nitty gritty of writing the rules.”

As Mosley explains in the second part of this interview which appears in the latest edition of Racecar Engineering magazine he would instigate many rule change concepts but then teams of people around him, typically engineers such as Peter Wright, would work out the fine details. One of Mosley’s concepts which failed to fully be introduced was a cost cap for smaller teams in F1, but it was resisted, only one (Manor) of the four new teams which entered the sport in 2010 in the assumption that a cost cap would be in force survives to this day, and it only just managed that.(Virgin – aka Marussia, aka Manor is the only one of the ‘cost cap’ teams to survive)
“In Formula 1 you want close and competitive racing. You want as many cars on the grid to be fast or capable of winning a race as possible and the only way that you will do that is to level up the money” Mosley explains. When the idea of a pure cost cap failed Mosley and his team came up with a new idea that many in the industry to this day think would have been great for the sport. “What evolved was the second idea. Let’s forget the idea of making everyone equal. Why don’t we give the teams that are prepared to work within a strict and strictly controlled budget that they can all afford a technical advantage. There are 1,000 things that you can do to make a back of the grid car competitive. You could make an F3000 car competitive if you do things to it. That would be a nice idea, but that was right at the end of my period. The head of one of the big teams said it would be a disaster for us if a Marussia beat our car, but it wouldn’t be. I am convinced that I did the right thing. You can help people, but if they don’t want to be helped, you can put a huge amount of time and effort in and all you get back is rubbish!” Greater technical freedom for those teams willing to work within a tightly controlled budget remains something many support.

Mosley is then it seems not entirely convinced by the current dominance of manufacturers in top level motor racing, it is a feeling that perhaps goes back some time, to the end of the V10 era and into the V8 era where engine life was extended.(BMW built around 600 F1 engines per year at one point according to Mosley)
“BMW in the were at one point making something like 600 engines a year, 300 for the team and 300 for research. That was when the engineers got out of control. The first thing that I managed to do that saved money was extend the life of the engines. The argument was simple; it cost the same amount of money to build an engine after 500 miles as it does after 5000 miles, so make them last longer. They said that they needed the qualifying engines. What should have happened is that the manufacturers could come with these amazing engines, but you must prepare them for X and to any team that wants them” Mosley contests.

Now with the manufacturers again pushing for greater technical freedoms, or as some may suggest, a greater freedom to spend money, but this has many in the sport, not least the private teams concerned about rising budgets.

“A lot of the research costs are being passed to the teams, but they don’t belong to the teams. It is immensely expensive. We had no means of introducing this technology in long distance racing. Le Mans was an Audi or VW benefit. If they said no, it was no. It followed because they could see and they took the Williams flywheel, and it was a great frustration to me that I couldn’t persuade the teams to agree to the small change to the dimensions to allow the flywheel to be fitted in F1. There is short-term and medium-term storage. For very short-term storage with massive energy, you need a flywheel. It is very annoying that I failed to get it done.”(The Williams flywheel ended up in the Audi R18)

New moves are being made in both F1 and LMP1 to see some kind of emissions control introduced in motor racing. These moves are largely being pushed by the manufacturers and oil companies sensitive to recent scandals relating to diesel emissions. “The current F1 cars are doing similar lap times to before but for half the fuel. Everywhere now you publish the g/km (of CO2) figure for all the road cars, so people understand the concept. The only problem is that if you publish the g/km figure for a Le Mans car, even a good performing one, it could be hair raising” Mosley warns.

But if the manufacturers all quit Formula 1 Mosley suggests the impact on the sport may not be as great as some would suggest. “It will be interesting. It is so big, global, accepted and known that it would take a lot to destroy it. Formula 1 now has governments, the classic case is Azerbaijan, and that is money. Most of those places that will still want a Grand Prix, with or without the manufacturers. The Grand Prix and the television rights are what makes the teams money. If they lost the manufacturers, it would affect the engines, but if every manufacturer took their engines away tomorrow, Cosworth would be there very quickly. You would get the same racing. If you said to the fan that the emissions had gone up, or using more fuel, big deal!” Mosley argues.

Back in 2009 right at the end of Mosley’s Presidency a breakaway F1 championship was threatened by a group of teams known as the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA). This Grand Prix World Championship would have gone into direct competition with Formula 1, at least that was the idea but Mosley doubts that it could have got that far.

“At the end of 2009 I had a choice. I could stand for election again and was quite satisfied that it would break the breakaway. There would have been a huge huffing and puffing over the winter, but when the teams realised that their budgets would be much reduced because the premise that they would get the same money from the television was just false. There were two big international sports management companies that pitched, and the thing that they had in common was that they both said that this only work if Ecclestone isn’t running a rival series. Of course he would have. The first thing that he would have said was ‘they are off to do their break away, can we call GP2 Formula 1?’ We would have said yes. Come February the whole thing would have collapsed and the season would start with the same teams and everything else, but with the new rules.
But, I thought is it worth another year, and I was so fed up with it by then.”(Max on Bernie: “switched on as ever, as mischievous as ever, as much fun as ever”)
Formula 1’s ownership has been in the news in recent days with new owners, Liberty Group, likely to take take control early in the new year. This has resulted in some speculation about Bernie Ecclestone’s role in the new organisation, though he has been confirmed as its CEO for the next three years. Mosley spoke with RCE before the news of the deal was public so his comments are not made with that in mind. However he did discuss Ecclestone, his future and the possibility of the sport without him.

“It is so hard to predict how F1 would look without Bernie. He has never seriously suggested stopping. Those who continue into old age tend to be able to continue to be active At the back of everyone’s mind is how much longer does he want to go on? At the moment he shows no sign of stopping. He is as switched on as ever, as mischievous as ever, as much fun as ever” Mosley enthuses.

What of Mosley, after years of involvement he appears to have stepped away from the sport, and in recent times has been linked more closely with media law in the United Kingdom, however he does keep a close eye on what is happening in motor racing.

“Most races I don’t watch. I am interested in the concept and structure and philosophy of F1, but it is very unwise to go back, and if you are not involved, it is better to not interfere. I have my objectives, and I am working away at those. When people came to me in 2013 to ask me to come back, I have nothing against Todt, but even if he had said ‘I have had it up to here, please come back’ there is no way. That phase of my life was finished and I was very interested in what was going on with newspapers” Mosley concludes.

Sam Collins has worked for Racecar Engineering for more than a decade. His passion for racing began during his work experience in the loom shop of Williams F1 aged 16 and he has been involved in the sport ever since. Sam attended Oxford Brookes University to study Automotive Engineering and has written for many publications since, including Motorsport News and Autosport. He is Associate Editor of Racecar Engineering

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